The Day I Lost My Superpowers

Title: The Day I Lost My Superpowers

Author: Michael Escoffier

Illustrator: Kris Di Giacomo

Publisher: Enchanted Lion Books

Year: 2013

Story Element #10 BEGINNINGS AND ENDINGS When you write, every word counts. But sometimes I think the beginnings and endings might count more. First of all you have to hook a reader right away, especially in children’s literature because you don’t have pages and pages to build up excitement. And of course the end has to be satisfying. If your story has a happy ending, ‘they lived happily ever after’ is implied. So unless you are writing a fairy tale, you’ll stay clear of that ending line.

Great is the art of beginning, but greater is the art of ending. ~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

This story has a great beginning…

The day I discovered I could fly, I knew that I was special.

As with any truly outstanding picture book, the illustrations play a huge role in the composition of the story. Here, when the girl discovers she can fly, we see her suspended in mid-air and two arms ready to catch her and throw her back up again.

She practices her flying skills by jumping off a bed and soaring off the slide into the sandbox. From there she develops her other superpowers. She can make things like cupcakes disappear (but not peas). She finds creative ways to go through walls, walk on the ceiling, and breathe underwater.

Just when she is convinced that she does indeed have superpowers and wonders if she should tell her parents, she falls and her superpowers disappear.

However, this is not the end of the book. If it had been, then the story would have fallen flat as well. No, here’s where a great ending makes all the difference in a book. As she cries for help, her mother swoops her up and gives her a magic kiss. Now that magic kiss could be the ending. But, no…

Aw, I love that. I’m so glad that instead of losing her belief in superpowers, it grew to include her mom, too. And it’s true, moms really do have super powers.
Thanks for sharing this one – I hadn’t seen it before!